Every summer, in the barnyard of a 180-year-old 100-acre family farm, history is made.
Five minutes south of the village of Millbrook, 4th Line Theatre specializes in theatrical adaptations of local and Canadian stories, using the uncommonly beautiful grounds of a former dairy farm as backdrop and inspiration. The result is a unique and exceptionally immersive theatrical experience that has attracted audiences for three and a half decades.
“How are we different? Well, we’re outside,” says Kim Blackwell, managing artistic director at 4th Line. “We do large-scale epic historical plays on the Winslow Farm, and we tell only Canadian stories, many of them rooted in the history of this region.”
In an era of blockbuster international entertainment, there’s something refreshing about seeing local history given such thorough and careful treatment. The feeling of specificity is enhanced by the setting, which gives 4th Line a flavour all its own. “There’s a kind of immersion for an audience member that you simply cannot get in a black box theatre,” Blackwell says. “This barnyard stage is so beautifully unpredictable in all the different places people can come from and exit to, and the audience never knows where it’s going to happen. It’s swirling around them in a very immersive way.”
The village of Millbrook has a proven knack for historical impersonation. It stood in for Charlottetown in Netflix’s Anne of Green Gables adaptation Anne with an E, and has a recurring role in the television series Murdoch Mysteries. Despite the local flair for the dramatic, Blackwell insists 4th Line’s appeal is not so much the region itself as the lens they use to interpret it.
“History is just a real curiosity about people’s lives,” she says. “If you went to any small town and sat down and collected stories, you’d find ordinary people are extremely fascinating. Our whole theatre is built on the premise that ordinary people do amazing things.”
Building on that respect for local stories, 4th Line also relies on the surrounding community to create a sense of scale, sometimes using casts of over eighty people. “We have some professional paid actors, some semi-professionals, some recent theatre school grads,” Blackwell says. “The vast majority of our artists are local community volunteers who give up their time to come out and be part of these shows. And they’re an integral to the epic quality of the work people see here.”
4th Line’s theatrical history began in 1992 with the production of The Cavan Blazers. Intrigued by the Protestant Catholic conflict in the township in the 1850s, founder Robert Winslow wrote the play and mounted a production on his family farm. Originally scheduled for six performances, it proved wildly popular and was extended for a run of six weeks instead.
“It had been such a huge hit and garnered a lot of attention, and people were really excited and we thought—oh, I guess we should do something else,” Blackwell remembers. “From there, we started the theatre, incorporated, and came up with a vision, mission, and mandate, which is still the mandate to this day, 34 years later.”
Later productions continued to mine local history for inspiration, adapting the stories of early European settlers Susanna Moodie and Catherine Parr Traill, for instance, or a notorious bank robbery in Havelock in 1961. For a show about The Great Farini, the legendary tightrope walker from Port Hope, they even enlisted a performer from Cirque du Soleil for a high-wire act across the barnyard.
One of the unique considerations when adapting local history is that relatives of the figures portrayed on stage could easily be in the audience, and Blackwell says she’s been gratified by the feedback from family members. She and the rest of the production team feel a responsibility to “get it right for everyone”—and that includes not shying away from darker and more fraught aspects of the historical record.
“In terms of settler culture, this is unceded land, so it’s a complicated history to celebrate in some ways,” Blackwell says. “We definitely want to include Indigenous perspective and voices in the narrative.” Staging Drew Hayden Taylor’s play The Berlin Blues, about a consortium of developers encroaching on a reserve, was one of the theatre’s efforts to incorporate Indigenous perspectives. For their 2026 production of Megan Murphy’s Wild Irish Geese they worked with Indigenous story consultant Patti Shaughnessy, who also appears in the show.
The play explores the history of the 2000 Irish immigrants who came to the region under the guidance of Peter Robinson, the Canadian politician from whom Peterborough may have taken its name. As the single largest state-sponsored immigration event in Canadian history, it’s an incredibly deep vein of history bound to resonate with local audience members.
4th Line’s other 2026 production, Schoolhouse by Leanna Brodie, operates on a more intimate scale, examining the life of an 18-year-old schoolteacher in rural Ontario in 1938. The play draws on the lives of real-life teachers who were dropped into an unfamiliar environment and tasked with educating a bewildering range of age groups.
“This play’s a real slice of life,” Blackwell says, “as well as a real celebration of teachers and mentors and people who make a difference in our lives. I can certainly think of the teachers in my life who made a huge difference to me, who inspired me and who saw something in me, and I think Schoolhouse is a real love letter to teachers.”
For either play Blackwell recommends arriving as early as 4 o’clock, so guests can relax and enjoy a meal from the concessions area, or picnic with their own food before the 6 o’clock curtain. Early arrival can help audiences attune themselves to the beauty of Winslow Farm before the show begins.
“I think people are often transformed here, and really, what else could we ask for?” Blackwell asks. “I have three E’s that I talk about: Educate, Entertain, and Enthrall. So if we’ve done our job in a play, we do all those.”
To book tickets visit 4thlinetheatre.on.ca, or call the box office at 705-932-4445. You can also learn more about upcoming shows on Instagram and Facebook.
Featured image: From 4th Line Theatre’s 2026 production of Leanna Brodie’s Schoolhouse, directed and choreographed by Monica Dottor. Set Design by Michelle Chesser. Costume Design by Chelsea Day.
